Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Would you like to lead the beautiful country of Kenya, where your followers will all be tribal voters, your friends are sycophants, your team an army of highly effective corrupt and evil criminals (all trained at the school of Mwalimu Moi). You will preside over the collapse of an economy and oversee a transformation of a once proud people to a state of beggars.

KenyaWe are a bankrupt country looking for a suitable candidate to rule the nation of some 39 million poor Africans. The ideal candidate should have no scruples, no guilt complexes, and a willingness to break the law (he or she will never be investigated). The candidate should be willing to protect corruption, impunity, illegal forces, and police brutality, willing to turn a blind eye to extrajudicial killings, famine, disease and extreme poverty. He or she should have a crazy spouse whose antics can be used as a diversion or smokescreen when necessary. He or she will accept and protect all wrong doers. He or she may need to devise crafty fund raising schemes to liquidate state assets for purposes of buying elections or lining ones own and friends or relatives, pockets. He or she is required to befriend and work with wanted criminals. He or she must be deaf, blind and mute in order to effectively ignore the rapid decline in state. He can use police force to quell any dissent from the population. He is not expected to know the people, indeed the less he knows the better.

Presidency – the job of the president is to amass personal wealth and to protect criminal politicians, family and friends. This job will be starting January 2012.

Job description –ignoring state policies and regulations in order to protect corrupt and criminal politicians and amass wealth.

Performance standards: This is a challenging position and a successful president will be measured by his ability to rig successive elections. He will also exceed the crimes of the previous president past five years within his first term.

Remuneration – the president can take whatever he desires for himself, family and friends, including cash and properties which can be grabbed as required

Perks – astronomical allowances, access to any land or assets required, Great family benefits, contracts for children. You will never be investigated,

Accountability – none.

Contract terms renewable every 4 years (you can change this and declare presidency for life).

Your team

Prime Minister – Your closest asset. Responsible for for maintaining a state of fear, coordinating mass killings, rape and looting. In charge of overseeing a parallel corruption system, ensures protection of criminals, and undermining your government. Responsible for keeping quiet.

Vice president – protects your back and helps orchestrate the illegal acquisition of funds for your next election. The Vice president is responsible for maintaining silence on national scandals.

Cabinet Ministers – People you select for their contribution to your election kitty. Responsible for vomiting on the shoes of donors. These people will serve you faithfully in degazetting forests, stealing grain, stealing pensions etc etc.

Official Spokesperson – Responsible for ensuring you don’t have to appear in person to respond to any uncomfortable scandals like raids on media houses, missing grain, Armenian brothers, police brutality, extrajudicial killings, or arms to Sudan. Responsible for carrying your cross.

First Lady – Your court jester. Fashion oblivious, extreme temper, slap happy. Responsible for national entertainment and creating a diversion when journalists get too close to scandals.

Other wives, mistresses and sycophants – Your silent loyal army from the mountains that does most of your work. Responsible for setting fashion standards, organizing deals, being proxies on fishy contracts, representing you incognito, and are the real center of power in the country.

Members of parliament – a bunch of bickering elected folk who need to pay off their votes. Responsible for setting their own salaries and perks.

I was reviewing share prices vs reported book values & my own 'projections' of profits. So what follows are my own views/opinions.

I will discuss the prospects of various listed firms as businesses with a discussion of the share prices as well. As many of you know I am a huge Warren Buffet fan so I hope I do him justice.

Pick # 1 (BTW, WB does not believe in investing in airlines... I know, I know...)

Kenya Airways (KQ) - Price on 24-02-2009 is 20/-

KQ has faced a tough 3 years with the plane crash in May 2007 - this was at the peak for KQ - and then the hits started;- elections in late 2007- post-election violence in 2008- record high oil/fuel prices- global financial turmoil in late 2008 & continuing

Monday, February 23, 2009

Let me state from the outset. Kenyan manufacturers need to be price & quality competitive. This is not a choice for them. They need to give Kenyans value.

For those who cry 'protectionism', I am NOT advocating tariff barriers or quotas or subsidies. I do encourage additional (non-monetary i.e. subsidies) incentives for Kenyan firms like better roads/infrastructure, staff training, lower tax rates, etc.

Your local Nakumatt (or Tusky or Uchumi or grocer) stocks too many foreign goods esp foods. Kenya is an agricultural country. We need to become a major agro-processor as well.

Baked Beans (I like Baked Beans on Toast)

Kenylon (Kabazi Canners of Kenya) manufactures baked beans but it seems Heinz (imported from the UK via Dubai) seems to has a larger display. There are other local brands BUT the imported brands dominate.

KShs 100 mn paid to Kabazi means a good portion goes to local farmers, factory workers, other local manufacturers & transporters. And this gets recycled into the local economy as these 'beneficiaries' buy other local goods.

Butter & Cheese

Why does Kenya import butter from New Zealand via Dubai?

KCC, Brookside, Daima, etc has great milk products. We export to the middle east, so why do we import these? We used to import milk products from China. Why?

Kenyan farmers will increase production IF we reduce imports thus boosting local demand.

I buy the local Kenya Gold (instead of the imported Baileys) & the local Smirnoff (vs imported vodkas).

And the above is a small sample of the imports. We could 'save' at least $100,000,000 in forex annually if we looked inwards. Add the jobs Kenya could create & the Global Financial Crisis would look less daunting.

Firestone used to be the first choice for Kenyans but I think there has been a major shift since it became Yana. Nakumatt sells 5+ brands & this shows a change in preferences. Yana tyres are NOT the cheapest in the market. Yana needs to sell the 'quality' of their brand to succeed.

2010 - The business park should be reaady but I do not trust naushad merali. I wonder how much SA will benefit from the business park vs merali. I think merali will suck the majority of the profits/gains from the business park.

Kenya's current FM, uhuru kenyatta, looks drunk. All the time. Just joking. I hope he does better than most of the jokers Kenya has had in the past especially the george 'goldenberg' saitoti.We all know Kenya's former FM (guess who???) is a former drunk. Kudos to him on kicking the habit but not the lethargy.

Now for the serious part: Kenyan ministers NEVER resign for any sort of foible or corruption. Starting with paul ngei to william ruto. And so many in between!!!

Monday, February 02, 2009

roocy's hubby, the Kenyan prez (if you believe sam 'cant count' kivuitu) has been in the government since 1963 as Finance Minister, VP or Prez. And Kenyans have been raped by the politicians since 1963.

Land-grabbing by kenyatta's regime. All sorts of other scandals during moi's regime. Anglo-fleecing, KPC-Triton & maize scams during his regime.

She says that MPs should use their humongous salaries to pay for starving constituents. Well, what about her horrendous large salary & office expenses for doing jackshit? And her hubby who gets paid more than MOST presidents or prime ministers in DEVELOPED countries!

How does she blame saitoti (I hold no torch that thief & incompetent either) for not providing 'civic' education?Don't schools teach - or common sense - that petrol is FLAMMABLE & dangerous?

So is Saitoti on the way out?

News Break: One day after the Molo Fuel Fire, a railcar derailed near Naivasha with 100,000 litres of UNPROCESSED COOKING OIL. And the thieves were at it again. Oblivious of the danger. Using this oil as 'food' can kill due to impurities. All I can say is expect a few more sick people. Or a few more dead.

I screwed up - in my defense, I tried my darnedest to find the ACTUAL announcement but was stymied by lack of information from KQ or the NSE.

Anyway, DN posted this article that claimed KQ's profits made a HUGE jump. I was unable to confirm the real story until much later... and it turned out that the story was not as rosy! In fact, it was not rosy at all!

KQ's 3Q 2008-9 ASKs were up 7% but DN claimed it was their PBT that was up 7% over 3Q 2007-8.

I have voiced my intense displeasure at the poor business reporting by Kenya's media houses BUT unless companies provide this information directly to us through posting it on their websites, how will we ever know or compare or verify?

To my readers, sorry for the faux pas. To KQ (among other listed firms), please post this information on your websites simulatneouly with the release to the media or NSE.